Rural Strategies for Flood Resilience: Analysis of Community Actions in Narayani River Basin, Nepal (Published)
In the context of Nepal, the most devastating disaster is flood in terms of the number of human causalities, livestock, livelihoods losses and damages. There are structural, soft structural, and nonstructural methods to reduce flood risks. In addition to these methods, there are also community actions being used for several years in the rural communities to mitigate, respond, and recover from the impacts of floods. The main objective of the research is to present an analysis of such community actions in the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) cycle, livelihood capitals, and Early Warning System (EWS) and then to summarize the conclusion. Accordingly, research was carried out in two communities, Kudiya and Paklihawa of Narayani river basin at Susta Rural Municipality, Nawalparashi-west, Nepal. The paper illustrates overall rural strategies adopted by community people to cope, withstand, and recover from the impacts of flood. The paper also includes an effective and efficient holistic approach to explain community-level empirical evidence. The paper illustrates the overall findings about community actions contributing to flooding resilience and these empirical evidences are found relevant, realistic, practical, and durable solutions in reducing the flood risks in the rural context of Nepal.
Keywords: Community, Flood, Livelihoods, Resilience, actions, capitals
Does Gender Makes Any Difference In Livelihoods Diversification? Evidence from Northern Ghana (Published)
The fact that rural livelihood portfolios is expanding and diversifying beyond agriculture is not contested. However, very little is known on gender dimension of rural livelihoods diversification and whether gender makes any difference in rural dwellers construction of livelihood portfolios. This paper therefore presents findings of analysis of data obtained from USAID sponsored Feed The Future population baseline survey conducted in 2012 in their Northern Ghana Zone of Influence, with the view of examining gender dimension of livelihoods diversification among the 13,580 respondents who were 15 years or older. Results of the analysis revealed significant gender differentiation in number of livelihood activities engaged in by men and women. The results established that livelihoods diversification is common across gender in Northern Ghana, but men are more likely to engage in more livelihood activities than women. Significantly more men than women were found to have been engaged in paid wage labour within the last 12 months, with women dominating the non-farm self-employed livelihood enterprises. This paper therefore recommends that, measures aim at women economic empowerment, should target providing training and financial support to enable women improve their non-farm livelihood enterprises
Keywords: Diversification, Gender, Livelihoods, Non-farm, on-farm
DOES GENDER MAKES ANY DIFFERENCE IN LIVELIHOODS DIVERSIFICATION? EVIDENCE FROM NORTHERN GHANA (Published)
The fact that rural livelihood portfolios is expanding and diversifying beyond agriculture is not contested. However, very little is known on gender dimension of rural livelihoods diversification and whether gender makes any difference in rural dwellers construction of livelihood portfolios. This paper therefore presents findings of analysis of data obtained from USAID sponsored Feed The Future population baseline survey conducted in 2012 in their Northern Ghana Zone of Influence, with the view of examining gender dimension of livelihoods diversification among the 13,580 respondents who were 15 years or older. Results of the analysis revealed significant gender differentiation in number of livelihood activities engaged in by men and women. The results established that livelihoods diversification is common across gender in Northern Ghana, but men are more likely to engage in more livelihood activities than women. Significantly more men than women were found to have been engaged in paid wage labour within the last 12 months, with women dominating the non-farm self-employed livelihood enterprises. This paper therefore recommends that, measures aim at women economic empowerment, should target providing training and financial support to enable women improve their non-farm livelihood enterprises.
Keywords: Diversification, Livelihoods, non-farm and gender, on-farm